This week, I
climbed Mt. Kumotori, the highest in Tokyo. A friend of mine drove me to
Kamosawa along Lake Okutama, and took a narrow for Kosode. We arrived at a
large parking area soon. This eliminated the possible long walk from the bus
stop which was nice. The route we chose was rather long to the summit but least
steepy, and it should be right for my suffering knee. Resultant 4 hours uphill plus 3 hours downhill was too good job for me, but my right foot was weakly aching in the very end.

Going up for
20 minutes or so, we saw an abandoned house. Further up, we enjoyed seeing wild
cherry trees in a few places, and the petals were falling. The road became
steeper and then came the point where the road split into two branches. To the
right, it goes through Mt. Nakatsuishi, and to the left bypassing directly to
Mt. Kumotori. Since Mt. Nanatsuishi is further 500m up, I automatically chose
the latter to save my energy and thought we might try this mountain on our way
back.

The rest, it
was comfortable trekking rather than climbing for the most part, and the last
cherry tree we saw was timely in full bloom. We passed through an emergency
heliport and then a wooden cabin. I heard that there were some mountain bike
riders who carry their bikes up here to Mt. Kumotori for a serious downhill,
and I felt it insane, but on the other hand this mild slope and relatively wide
road might be exceptionally suited for their purpose, I presumed. An even more
gorgeous plan may be to fly to the heliport and start climbing from there,
which must be more fun.

The last 1 km
to the summit was more like a climbing, but even so the cabin at the summit is
already in noticeably short distance, therefore it is an easy trekking pulling
out your effort. You can stay in the cabin overnight if you have a sleeping
bag, but its toilet was miserable and I thought it was shameful. Our Prince
won’t visit here any more? This summit is the border of Tokyo, Saitama and
Yamanashi prefectures, and if they collaborate, they could surely deal with the
issue.